This Week in Startups - Twitter funding secured, Boring Co. raises $675M, Amazon's $1B VC fund, Ackman's $400M loss + The Lunar Society: Dwarkesh Patel | E1441

Episode Date: April 23, 2022

First Jason and Molly do four rapid news stories: Elon securing funding for the Twitter buyout (03:20), Bill Ackman’s $430M loss on Netflix (11:48), The Boring Company's $675M raise (18:47), Amazon���s $1B Industrial Innovation fund (28:56). Then, Producer Rachel interviews Dwarkesh Patel of The Lunar Society Podcast (37:12), he's a recent computer science graduate and one of the 42 people Jeff Bezos follows on Twitter! (00:00) Jason and Molly intro today's show (03:20) Elon secures funding (09:59) Intercom - Get advanced Intercom features and Early Stage Academy at a 95% discount https://www.intercom.com/early-stage (11:24) A little more on Elon solving the bot problem (11:48) Ackman’s $430M loss (18:47) Boring Co’s $675M raise (23:17) Microsoft for Startups Hub - Apply in 5 minutes, no funding required, sign up at http://aka.ms/thisweekinstartups (24:35) The grand vision of The Boring Co. (28:56) Amazon’s $1B fund (32:51) Thorne - Personalized, scientific wellness. Go to https://Thorne.com/u/TWIST (34:15) Introducing the OK Boomer Segment (37:12) Dwarkesh Patel of The Lunar Society Podcast Check out The Lunar Society: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/ Follow Dwarkesh: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

Okay, everybody, it's Friday. It's going to be a variety show. We've got four great topics for you from Twitter to boring company, Amazon dropping a billion, Ackman's $430 million loss on Netflix Plus. Plus, we have OK Boomer, everybody's favorite segment, which is an interview with a brilliant sounding blogger and technocrat, I would even say, in the good way, Renaissance Man.

It sounds like you're really going to enjoy that. And also, I just want to shout out. Jason, J-Cal, keeping his promises. It is Earth Day. It is Earth Day, yes. And our first climate deal has launched. I love this company. Have a climate portfolio now.

Yes. Because Jay-Cal was like, yeah, let's do that. We have two. We have one. Actually, on the same day that we officially launched the climate syndicate, yes. My first founders gave our first presentation at the accelerator. And I think we could shout out that company.

I think we should. Eat spring. And so they're doing this really clever idea. I watched a presentation yesterday. They are letting you get all of your various groceries in glass jars, as I've talked about. I've been trying to be zero plastic. So you're going to be able to order your flour, your sugar, your pasta, all in these beautiful glass jars, you put them in your pantry,

and then you send the glass jars back, and they send you more stuff. And it's kind of a premium service right now, but you could be zero waste with this product from your grocery. Such a cool founder, Freedom Anacompa Gupta. She lives in a zero waste home. Yes. I like, we're going to have her on this weekend climate startups because I'm like, I need to know everything about how you do that.

It's phenomenal. And then if you are an accredited investor and you want to sign up for the climate syndicate, it's the syndicate.com slash climate. We're doing it. Invest with us. It's going to be a great show. Change the world. It's going to be a great show.

It's going to be a great future. It's going to be a great future. Stick with us. This weekend startups is brought to you by Intercom. If you're an early stage high-growth startup, you can get access to Intercom's Early Stage Academy today at a 95% discount. Join the program today at intercom.com slash early-stage stage or email them at startups at intercom.i.o Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub. For the challenges you face as a startup founder, Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub is here to help.

The platform provides founders with free resources like Azure credits, development tools like GitHub, mentorship resources, productivity software, training, and so much more. The program is open to all and takes five minutes to apply with no funding required. Learn more and sign up at a.k.a.m.s. slash this week in startups. And Thorne. Thorn empowers people to take control of their long-term. well-being with a proactive, science-based approach to health. Through a variety of at-home tests, Thorne teaches you about what your body needs and provides the right, high-quality, certified nutritional supplements for you.

To get started and take 10% off your first order, head to thorn.com slash you slash twist. All right, everybody, it's five for Friday. You guys love when we whip through the news. There's so much going on. God, and we had about 10 items. So we weren't going to do like 10 for the weekend. So we just did five for Fridays. I try to like combine two into one.

Like we are, I mean, you know, hope springs eternal. Hope springs eternal for the five for Friday. But we are going to try to get through all these, what, five minutes per, five minutes per story. Yeah, important stories. But I feel like we're getting through a little groundhog day here. Obviously, Twitter news up first. So let's start the clock.

And I'll tee us up for the first story. Let's begin. Two words, people. Funding. secured. Oh, God, here we go. According to it's the new mission accomplished. According to a regulatory filing on Thursday,

Elon Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion and might now try to purchase outright some or all of Twitter stock directly from shareholders. This includes $25.5 billion in debt via Morgan Stanley and others, and he has committed $21 billion in equity. Twitter has not responded to the proposal. Yeah, I think they're curled up under a desk, right?

Yeah. And by desk, I mean, their homes and their beach houses. I mean, they are in, they must be in a state of shock because. I can't imagine, yeah. This is, this company has never had to really focus. Yeah. They've had a lost decade. The stock, if you bought it 10 years ago, is trading below where it is now.

It's a dysfunctional company. We all know that. It's an amazing product. The product has changed the world. And I am actually, I'm tickled pink that at the prospect of the product getting better, I'd like to see it still be a publicly traded company. So I don't know if the plan here is to just buy shares and just keep letting it trading. The more shares Elon owns of this, I predict the more people are going to want to own the company,

like his other company. So I can see like Twitter being trading at like $100 a share after he buys up a lot of these shares. So, uh, what's interesting is that he still in theory cannot, right? The, the poison pill is still in place. So what gets really dishy here is that this sounds like,

given the lack of response by Twitter, that that Elon is exploring whether to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock at this price of 5420. Um, but is not determined whether to do so. However, the, the board did put that poison pill in place,

which is, which is that if he buys a certain amount, starts to own a certain amount of shares, that then basically they can just print some more money, right? Devalue the shares. So what is actually the move here? Like, go ahead and force them to do that? I think it's a chess match.

And there is a fiduciary responsibility, a duty of care for all shareholders and for the company that the board has to do. I'm guessing the majority of shareholders would rather see Elon run the company than the current management. I think they would rather see there be half as many employees and maybe some number of them come to an office and compete against Facebook and try to win or try to grow the business and maybe take it more seriously. So you think it's like a game of chicken?

Like he says, look, we've got them on chess. Sorry. Yeah. Well, chicken in the sense of like, look, I'm coming for you. And if you issue this poison pill, it is going to damage your standing as a responsible steward of fiduciary duty. I mean, I think it would result in shareholder lawsuits, like massive ones. So I think they're probably doing their diligence to see if they can find another couple of buyers, raise the price, whatever.

And that sounds like that would be the responsibility of a board in my, because I've never been on a public board, but I've been plenty of private boards. I think the right fiduciate would be, are there other buyers? Will they exceed this price? Can we get another 5% to the price? Can we get two or three bucks to the price and, you know, get everybody a better outcome? and then if you in this, you know, if it is a game of chicken,

you know, it's, that'd be like, hey, we're going to be on this head on collision. I think we know who loses that. I think the person with 46 billion dollars and who's running some of the greatest companies are,

is going to roll over them. So I think this is, uh, the beginning of the end. Yeah. Of, um, of Twitter as we know it.

No, the beginning of the end of like, um, trying to fight this because there's no other buyer. If there was another buyer, the price would be at $54 right now, right? Or $51, $52. The price would be rising if people thought Microsoft was a viable or Google was a viable suitor.

There's no other viable suitor right here. I don't think anybody wants the heat that Twitter brings. Yeah. Like, look at how much heat taking Trump off these platforms caused. Look at what heat is caused by, you know, bots and spam and all this other stuff. Like, I don't think people want that smoke. I'll be honest. Like, who wants that?

I mean, I'm sort of surprised. prize that Elon does too. When I say the end of Twitter as we know it, I don't mean the product. I mean the end of Twitter in its sort of current incarnation with this leadership and potentially this board. Like we said it when we had Alex from the Verge on that I think that like, or I said it, that Twitter's only move at this point. Literally only move is to find another buyer. Otherwise you lose. Like there's no universe in which if your bluff is called, you cannot issue that poison pill. and devalue the shares. You're absolutely right.

If you devalue the shares, I mean, I don't know. Revolts. What kind of liability would you have? Now, imagine also Elon walks away at some point. They were saying, like, maybe he's not serious about this. I mean, it's a lot of work to set this up. So he's obviously serious. So I think in our 27 seconds that he leveraged Tesla debt?

Well, I mean, I think he has many companies. Got the board companies, got Tesla, got SpaceX. So people want to own shares in those companies. So obviously, you can take mortgage and loan. against them. It says, I think I read that he pledged like $20 billion worth of shares against this. So I think when you set these things up, my understanding is, I've actually done it. You say, here's a block of shares.

They say, okay, we're going to give you this against that. There's a ratio of percentage. And then if this goes down, you have to start paying off the loan. So I think he's got the money to do it. And I think there's a lot of people who would want to partner with him. Anybody who owns the shares wants to see them go up. So if it hasn't gone up and you own 5% or 2%, you know, why wouldn't you take the chance of having somebody else run it?

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Man, when you have that chat box pop up, you're going to get really candid feedback on what your product does well. Hey, and maybe things that you need to fix. So if you're an early stage high growth, Startup, you can get access to Intercom's Early Stage Academy today at a 95% discount. Join the program today at Intracom.com.com slash early dash stage. Once again, intercom.com slash early dash stage or email them at Startups at Intercom. And be sure to tell them, Jason, at this weekend startup sent you.

By the way, you can register for Intercom's next customer experience for growth webinar on May 18th by clicking the link in your YouTube description or the episode page. Mostly. And he talked about, if you saw it, he talked about on Twitter, he's going to solve the bot problem and the fake account problem. That's his number one priority.

Great. Can't wait for that. Honestly, I actually talked to him about the bot problem many times. And we talked about the possible solutions. And it's super easy. I mean, it's super easy.

It's super easy if your incentives aren't the opposite. Yep. ding dang what's next start the timer billionaire hedge fund manager bill acman has dumped his entire stake in netflix which he initially disclosed about three months ago for a four hundred and thirty million dollar loss acman bought about three point one million shares of netflix for one point one billion dollars in january when he disclosed the stake on january 26 the stock was trading in 160 billion dollars that market cap he closed his position on wednesday taking this 450 million loss in about three months and basically was just like, I'm getting out while I can.

CNBC's Scott Wapner talked to Ackman on the phone shortly after he closed his position. Here's a 40-second clip of our precious time of Wapner talking about their conversation. We'll see on the other side. As he told me, the reason why he exited his position after only three months at a $400 million loss was, quote, I'm 100% ready to admit when I'm wrong and 100% ready to admit when I'm wrong quickly. So that sort of gives you an idea of where his thinking was. He said this might work with someone with a portfolio with smaller positions, but when you have eight or nine investments that are large, it's hard to have bets where the dispersion of outcomes can be so wide.

And I think that sort of reflects the uncertainty of Netflix's business moving forward. I don't think anybody, whether the retail investor or somebody as smart as Bill Ackman, knows the appropriate valuation of Netflix. Wow. So he rage sold. He rage quit. He rage quit. We have this in poker. You lose a big hand. You're supposed to win, you know. The person hits runner runner. And the person just gets up. You know, after they get felt it and they just leave. It's called a rage quit. It's called a rage quit. We have this in video games too. I have this in Halo. Oh, you can rage quit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that might be where. Anyway. That might be where it originated from. Yeah. This is a rage quit for sure. Rage quit. I have a question. However, when was it? I would like us to find that clip where we were talking about this docs that you would like to have in 10 years and I was like I got to be honest, I'd rather have Bitcoin than Netflix because it seemed so clear.

That was on this show and it was within the last couple of months. What I don't understand about someone as smart as Bill Ackman, I put that in air quotes, is why the hell he bought that much Netflix in January? Well, let's think it through. The competitive landscape was

well known at that time. There was competition. Sometimes competition is a sign that There's a vibrant market and it's growing because everybody wants to be in on it. And you're the leader. So buying the leader, the counter would be buying the leader is a good idea. So if you were thinking about computer hardware, you go with Apple. If you're thinking about e-commerce, you go with Amazon.

If you think about cloud computer, you go with Amazon as well. You think about advertising. You go with Google. So there is something of buying the leader is a protected thing. But this feels like there's something else going on here. have a theory that maybe he, when you are placing these big bets, you typically have access to management. The way he's rage quitting on the way out, it felt a little emotional, maybe a little like I'm kicking the company, but I can't predict it. And I think maybe he feels like management

didn't paint a good enough picture for him of where they're at. And he obviously has access directly to read Hastings, et cetera. And this feels a little bit personal. Like, I don't want to own the stock and I'm going to make it very public that this stock is a dog and I don't want it in my portfolio. And so in this big, you're buying big chunks of this stuff and somebody comes out, because he could have very quietly sold it and he could have made a statement like, you know, we think streaming's got headwinds, the end, you know, but this feels a lot more emotional and a lot more personal to me.

So I wonder if there's something else going on here. Like they didn't tell him they had these significant headwinds. That is a super interesting insight. Because honestly, the other thing that doesn't totally make sense about it is that when I was on CNBC the other day talking about this, one of the analysts who was on was like, I'm going to buy. I'm buying this dip because I think if Netflix can turn those 100 million subscribers into six bucks a month for an ad-supported tier and whatever that there's actually a rebound opportunity here. So to sell out a loss, I'm just saying if I were in that fund, I'd be like, I question your decision to take that biggest stake in Netflix in January.

and I question your decision to take a $450 million loss and then be like, I'm just mad. Or maybe he sees another opportunity. Maybe he's looking and seeing like another, in those big funds and he said it like, did he say they have nine positions or something? So if they're going to have a small number of positions, they want each one of them to work. When one of them is not going to work, you know, it's going to be 12% of your returns or whatever, 11% of your returns.

You got to move it quickly. And he just maybe saw a better opportunity to, own Disney. Maybe he looked at it and was like, you know what, if I'm going to bet on an entertainment company a streamer, I'm going to bet on Disney or something. Totally. And in fact, the alternative to everything I just said is this Twitter user supermogatu said, really have to respect Ackman selling Netflix on a thesis break and calling it like it is the discipline move. People are going to trash talk, but it's the pro move. The cost of good risk management is looking bad to the peanut gallery at the moment. Peanut Gallery me. Well, there is something to that.

You know, if you were in a hand of poker, you know, I use gambling a lot. And, you know, the cars just don't go your way and you're sitting there with like you had aces and the board has three hearts and it's you know king queen jack and you're just like oh my lord or four five six like i'm nowhere near this and somebody's shoving all their chips and well maybe maybe you um just got unlucky and so i do i do appreciate the discipline here um the other possibility i don't know how you do it i know that buzzer and i freak out like the radio in me is like dude no i feel like it's like When you hear that buzzer, it's kind of like you're getting, you're like a presidential candidate. It's like a yellow light.

It's just a yellow light. It's just a yellow light. It's kind of like when you run yellow lights, you know, it's like you're like, yellow means stop and you're like, no, yellow means hit the accelerator and go faster, right? Like you have to, only six seconds to get there. So I think what also could have happened was maybe he had advice for them. Because sometimes if you're wearing these big positions, he might have said like, listen, I think you need to cut staff, you need to cut expense.

and you need to put the advertising tier in now, and you need to have a lower tier, and you need to, and they weren't moving fast. And that was one of the things that I think people have been critiquing is that Netflix seems to have been, you know, blinders on our way is the right way and let's not do anything else.

I think Netflix just needs to go for that dual subscription model where they have a lot of video games, casual video games, other video games, buy some video game studios and combine it, and then maybe even have a music service. So, you know, if they added a music,

service and you got music games and video content. Wow, yum, yum. Like, innovate. I got double. I got doubled. No innovation is the problem. Okay, let's do our next story. Another Nudes Boring Company has raised $675 million in a Series C at a $5.7 billion valuation led by our friends at Sequoia. Obviously, Elon Musk created the boring company to revolutionize transportation by creating, quote, Safe fast to dig and low-cost

transportation utility and freight tunnels. Company has spent the last five years building core technology is designed to solve traffic and beautify our cities via loop

and hyperloop. So there they are using the hyperloop title. Remember he released that white paper on the hyper loop where you take the air

out of the tube and it creates less resistance and you can potentially go 1,000 or 2,000 miles an hour. It's a really interesting physics problem.

The investment announced announcement outlined loop and pro frock loop is an electric zero emissions high speed underground transportation system that gets riders to their destinations without intermediate stops remember back in 2021 Vegas became the first city to approve a loop project includes a 29 mile tunnel network connecting 51 stations pro frock is a machine that will quote construct mega infrastructure projects in a matter of weeks instead of years and at a fraction of the cost pro pro Proof rock.

Proof rock? I think we might put emphasis on the rock, right? Because it like... Okay, proofrock, yes, is designed to... Porpoise? Porpoise. Porpoise. Like go like this, like, re-minton swims.

Got it, porpoise. Yeah. Meaning it launches, this is why you read this stuff. Meaning it launches directly from the surface, mines underground, and reemerges upon completion. The main benefit of using a proof rock is a continuous mining capabilities and the fact that no person is needed to be in the mine while it's operating, which is safer.

Yes, this is a BFD. It's a big freaking deal. It's plenty of money, and these things work. And I think people were kind of dogging them and making fun of them when they used them. The Las Vegas one. The Las Vegas one, and I was like, do people, it's like people really lack imagination.

This is the same group of people who made fun of the Roadster and were like, it's just a Lotus Lees made of carbon fiber with a giant, battery pack that uses no gas and goes 200 miles. And it was like, you just, can you write down the sentence you just record? You built a tunnel in Vegas in under a year. And they're going to build 51 miles of it. And if you've ever been on the strip, it sucks.

And he did the hyperloop paper. So if the hyperloop paper exists and he's building tunnels, is your imagination not able to connect these two things? I mean, yes. He's obviously building, you know, these things to go faster and pass for and pass. And the Robotaxy announcement feeds right into the boring company and it all kind of, yeah, it's all like one big thing in time. I just want to shout out our super literary producer, Rachel, who was like, oh, I think it's from the love song of J. Alfred Prufra, the poem by T.S. Eliot, which it probably freaking is. P-R-U-F-R-O-C-C.

Wait, what did our nerd girl producer, lit producer, Rachel? What? First of all, respect the lit. I respect the lit. She said, T.S. Eliot wrote a poem in 1910 called the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. And then I got really distracted reading the Wikipedia and trying to see if it had anything about porpoising and awesome digging. But I don't think it did. But still, I bet that's where it's from. And now I really want to ask Elon like what that reference is about.

Although I am also focused on this interesting technology question of solving traffic, I'm now down the poem rabbit hole. Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is. spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night-cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells, streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question. Oh, do not ask what is it? Let us go and make Our visit.

In a room, the woman, women come and go, talking of Michelangelo, the yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window pains. I mean, I can go on, but I'm getting a little too. It's lovely. Emotional. By some estimates, here comes the bad news. Over 90% of startups will go out of business in year one.

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that's like Microsoft slash this week in startups. I'm getting a little too emotional. I was just listening to the part that said, this is how you dig the tunnels. But either way, I'm loving the literary connection. And look, yes, like everyone is short-sided. Everyone lacks imagination.

Everyone, like, no one believes in a thing until the thing is real. And sometimes that's warranted. and sometimes it's not, but like, respect the vision and the lid. Yeah, well, here's the thing. We built tunnels previously. Yes.

Our great grandparents were like, you know what would be cool? If you could get from Brooklyn to Manhattan quicker. And they're like, yeah, well, we could just, we're sending people on ferries. You want to make the ferries fast? And somebody's like, you know what? No, let's, let's figure out another way.

And they're like, you want to build another bridge? And they're like, there's already too many bridges. It's just the whole, the whole island's covered. in bridges. Let's build a tunnel. And they're like, that's not possible. I think it's possible because they did it in France, whatever. And like, all you have to do is drop these things and connect them and then take the water out.

They just drop these casings. And they were like, yeah, okay, let's give a shot. Yeah. Everything cool. You've ever done. When's the last time Manhattan built a tunnel? Or the tunnel? I mean, remember when they were like, we're going to dig a channel between France and England and everybody was like, Yorba? Every cool thing that humans have ever done started as a banana pants idea. Yes. When was the

tunnel built. I remember that. I know. It was in our lifetimes, right? It wasn't in the 90s? 88. 88. So it just, it feels like people have forgotten that you can build tunnels. Spoiler alert. This is not that difficult. It's just. Luckily. Yeah. Luckily, this is what risky capital is for. Not everyone has forgotten it, which is why Sequoia and Bi Capital were like, yeah, dude, make it go. Oh, you're the guy that did the rocket thing, and then they landed on the freaking drone ship in the middle of the ocean in one of the coolest videos you'll ever see. Your damn lifetime? Yeah.

Okay, go. I mean, just dig more tunnels and all of a sudden you'll have less people on the surface street. And you know what? Sure. Make it a subscription. Make it $25 a month to have access to the tunnels. And the tunnels are guaranteed to have a certain speed.

So you pay $25 a month to have access to the tunnels like Easy Pass. And you, yeah, that's it. It's for rich people to go down and take the tunnel. And then you know what happens? The surface streets get empty. And then there's less traffic up there. And then you can build more tunnels. So who cares?

Like make it, I think it should be like a Netflix subscription if you were. I mean, I also like to know for sure. What is the, what was the cost? Do we have the cost per mile of the Vegas one or what they think the cost will be of a tunnel?

Because I could do the back of the envelope math here. What is a mile cost? I mean, I think we're going to get it. Currently, currently tunnels cost between $100 million and $1 billion per mile. That's what,

But like the traditional way, what does the boring company say is loop tunnels will cost? This, this might be 10 million a mile. Okay. So 10 million a mile. All right. So 10 million a mile. So let's imagine you had a hundred miles. That's one billion dollars, right? One billion dollars. These things are going to last 50 years. One billion divided by 50 years, 20 million a year. Now, if you put in interest payments and everything, you double it. So 40 million a year. 40 million a year. if you had a million people using that $100 million system in a city of $10 million or something, a 10% of people elect to do it, they pay $40, it pays for itself. $40 a year, which is $5 a month or less, $4 a month. So the Las Vegas cost $47 million for a 1.7 mile loop that was $27 million per mile, which is still like a quarter of what tunnel did.

evidently usually costs, which is between, again, a hundred million and a billion dollars per mile. Yes. And so these are one way tunnels or whatever, but you can see the math is obviously going to work. So it's just a matter of which city is the most frustrated and wants to have a delightful city. Miami, Vegas, a lot of cities are like, let's do this.

You know, who doesn't want to do this? Corrupt cities that are paying $500 million or a billion dollars to some, you know, construction company that is corrupt. And, you know, it's like, yeah, this is impossible to do. do. All right. We just need to build these. Okay, let's do another one. We're like five minutes over and that's my fault because of the poem. Sorry. All right. One more. We're going to do four for five today.

Story four. Sorry, Snapchat. Shout out Snapchat. On every level, basically. On Thursday, Amazon announced a $1 billion dollar industrial innovation fund to invest in startups building solutions for, quote, customer fulfillment, logistics and the supply chain, all things very relevant to Amazon's business. So basically, Amazon, in corporate VC here. I'm not sure if they've done this before.

Well, they did it effectively with the climate pledge in some ways, but I think that was mostly, I don't know what has come of that, but this is actually pretty interesting. Investing in companies that imagine solutions that incrementally increase delivery speed and further improve the experience of employees working in warehousing and logistics field. That last part is PR nonsense. Yeah, but okay.

I don't care about that experience. They're just like, anytime we announce something, can we just put something in about the factory workers? and that we actually consider them part of the company. Reduce injuries, for sure. It's just definitely going to reduce injuries or whatever. I mean, they really, I always thought it was so dumb that they didn't make it a point to treat those people exceptionally well. Yeah.

Because a lot of people did like those jobs and appreciated them. It seems like they've turned that around, though, whether in the process. I mean, there was that tornado thing. That was not good. Not good. But, you know, you don't know what the details are yet. So it doesn't look good, I'll say. I mean, we should wait and see what the actual,

if they did tell them, like, stay in the building during a tornado. That seems like a really bad decision by a mid-level manager. No, it's not good. And to be fair, Tesla also struggles with high amounts of injuries and the robot. You know, it's interesting because one of the Amazon. Well, actually turns out Tesla has lower than other places because they have more robots. But I think any of these companies that have any kind of normal problems in a factory, they just, the expectation is higher on them.

The expectation is higher. and they're investing in robots to try to make that all go away, including one of Amazon's investments is agility robotics, which develops bipedal walking robots called digits. But I wonder, is this like,

fun note from the producers. Remember Fast and Stripe and the conversation around taking money from strategic VCs? I mean, this is a strategic BC question. Yep. And a mafia question in some ways, like, which is all corporate VC.

If they do put money in your company, you want it to be a, small amount. You don't want them on the board. You don't want them to have optionality. Um, and so I think the Stripe issue with Fast was they put in way too much money. Yeah. And Intel used to do this. They used to put a million dollars into a lot of deals. So they would just be like, if you were raising six million, you know, you could expect Intel to put in 1.5 or 1. They would just kind of top off the round. And that was a good use of a strategic. So they just had this option to call management. They owned 2% of the

company, no problem. So if, you know, Amazon or Stripe or whoever owns 1% or 2% of your company, it's not a big deal. When they start owning 10% or 20% now, they have a seat at the table. They have a lot of voting shares. They might have more shares than if you have three co-founders. They might have as many shares as the founders or each individual founders. So it gets problematic.

Yeah. Yeah, this is great. It's interesting and it's really smart because it doesn't feel like this is a hot space for venture necessarily. No. That's why they're doing it. Because fulfillment is the only way we're ever going to get anything in the world. But, you know, this is why Amazon's doing it.

And it'll probably enable. some great companies. It's probably that VCs do not see hardware in this space as a great opportunity for returns. They'd rather do software and other things. And so this is Amazon's way of saying, like, if VCs would fund it because it doesn't have the return profile, well, maybe we can help. And so good on them.

I mean, robots and robotics are kind of a money sinkhole. And so you can see why Amazon would be like, we really need this. And other VCs would be like, yeah. It's good. Okay. It's good stuff. Well, there you go. Listen, if you're a high.

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episode because you get the five for Friday or four. We shortchanged it this week, but I think we double down on the first four. But everybody loves OK Boomer. So tell us, Molly, what is on OK Boomer this week? Yes. Today we have Dorcasch Patel, a UT Austin December 2021 grad where he got a bachelor's in computer science. He blogs about tech science, talent and other things.

And also, this is like, so up my alley, the host of the Lunar Society podcast, where he interviews economist, scientist, philosopher. Some of his guests include economist Tyler Cohen and the physicist David Deutsch. This is like when you realize that someone who's less than half your age is just brilliant. He's hosting like the new like Algonquin salon up in here talking about science. When he said Lunar Society, I immediately got skull and bones like some secret society from Yale kind of. Does have that vibe. Bohemian Grove vibe.

But I like Tyler. Is it Cohen? Cowen. Cowan? I like Tyler Cowan. He has this econ talk podcast that like I listen to sometimes and I, it's, I suppose it's like when people listen to this and they're not in the startup space and you kind of get 70 or 80% of it and then you have to have Wikipedia open.

So like a lot of times I'm listening to him, I don't know if you've done this on a podcast, but I'll listen to a podcast while I'm doing my email or something. And then I'm just like, okay, pause podcast, go to Wikipedia, read the Wikipedia page on some term they did, which is why sometimes on podcast. I'm like, explain that term. unpack that term because I want to say people from having to go to Wikipedia. That's how I feel about Deezas and Mero, which is a show that I love. And it is so dense with cultural.

It's so dense with cultural references that have to pause every like 10 seconds to be like, wait. I did that with still processing. Yes. Because they would be mentioning, you know, people I might not have heard of or shows that I didn't know about or an album or an musician. And I'm like, I'm just, you know, like my musical taste stopped in like 99. Like anything that happened the last 23 years. I don't know anything. Like after the smashing pumpkins, you know, in Nirvana, it's like, I don't know.

Tribal Quest is like the end of my knowledge, but it's like Jay Z and Trambley. Your kids are about to start helping you out. I just have my son straight up creating playlists for me at this point. Actually, I'm helping them out. I got them on Talking Heads. I got them on David Bowie. I got them on Queen. I'm just going through like the great rock acts of the 70s and 80s.

Yep. And they love 80s playlist. They love 70s playlist. And man, I just been playing talking. heads for them and they're into it. Yeah. It's pretty cool. I'm like, let's go.

You're like, girls. Let's do it. Okay, girls. Oh. Nice. When two six-year-olds are rocking out to talking heads, it's kind of fun in the car all the way to talk. It's adorable.

Yeah. And this, by the way, could not be a more appropriate intro for the OK Boomer segment. Yes, exactly. Okay, boomers. Enjoy. Okay, Boomer. I understood the assignment. To our cash, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

I actually didn't find you. Producer Justin found you, who's helping us out with this recording today. Justin directed me to your Twitter page. I saw you before on Twitter, but I didn't get to dive in deeply to your content until a few days ago. I read a ton of your blog post and DMD,

and you came on the podcast pretty quick, so thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for finding me, Justin. So you are a December 2021, U.T. Austin grad, where you got a Bachelor's of Science and Computer Science.

We've had a lot of people on from the UT system, whether that be Austin or not Austin. Ben Awad is another computer science person, but he didn't go to Austin. So I always have to preface. He went to UT, not UT Austin. But how did you get into this blogging podcasting space from computer science? Well, COVID hit my sophomore year. Classes went online and I was bored. I didn't have anything to do.

So I just called emailed my first guest, Brian Kalf, He was incredibly kind to come on, and everything else has just been compounding returns on his kindness. And then from there, you know, you can get more guests by just saying, hey, would you please come on my podcast, wherever the pleasure to have Brian Kaplan dot, dot, dot on. And you just take it from there. So your podcast is the Lunar Society podcast. It is incredible. You've had a ton of really cool guests.

Can you explain to everybody a little bit what Lunar Society is all about? I wish I could. Yeah, there isn't, you know, I've been asked this question before, and I really should have. have a better answer. What is the podcast about? There isn't a central theme. I would say I just like to interview people I'm interested in. A lot of them end up being economists or scientists or philosophers. And I try to ask some questions that somebody who has read all their work would ask them who wants to go deep into their ideas. And I saw recently on Twitter, I think Jeff Bezos recently followed you. Is that right? Oh, yeah. That must feel, yeah, that's insane. So who was

the, you think the person that you had on a podcast that pushed you over the edge to Jeff Bezos? his world. There's no explanation. There's no person I can point to where it's like, oh, yeah, that must have been how. The night before Mark and Driesen retweeted that blog post, that may have been the impetus, but as for how it came across Jeff Bases's history, at what point he decided to use his valuable time to read it, I have no explanation. That's really awesome. So, explaining me a little bit about why it's called a Lunar Society podcast, because, again, producer Justin looked into it,

and we were like, wait, the Lunar Society, like the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which is a British dinner club, an informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands, entertainment, including industrials, natural philosophers, and intellectuals. Is it related to that one? Yeah, yeah. You basically got it. That's a full description, almost.

I needed a name, and, you know, I had a book by the similar title on that society at hand. And, you know, I just recorded that. that episode with Brian. I needed to figure out what to call it. And then the Lunders Society. So you wait. So you recorded with him before you even thought of a name for the podcast. Don't quote me on that. I think that's how it would happen, but it's been two years. So that's how I remember it. Very cool. I'm really into like the branding and the marketing side of podcasting. Obviously, both of our hosts on the speaking startups have their own podcast

outside of the one that we're talking on right now. So I'm very, very interested in that sense. And what I thought was really cool about the Lunar Society is when I looked into it on the beginning of before like even realizing who you were, anything like that, I was even more impressed by your blog post because you were just so well written. And I find that there's not a lot of overlap sometimes with people that are really good interviewers and really good writers. I find that it's a skill, both of them. And so if you invest a lot of time into writing, you're an incredible writer.

If you invest a lot of time in interviewing, I find you're an incredible interviewer. I think you can be a good talker and a good writer, but a good interviewer. you're not thinking about what you have to say as much as you're thinking about what somebody else has to say. It's cool that you have a lot to say, and you are very good at getting out what people want to hear from your guests as well. So moving on to your amazing words that I got to read in your blog, Scout Talent as Buying Options was the one that I would love to talk to about. Yeah, yeah. And thank you for the kind of words. So in that blog post, I'm trying to figure out why certain,

kinds of things that young people do seem more impressive than other kinds of things. So to give you an example, imagine there's two high schoolers, both of them are trying to apply to selective colleges. One of them says on their application, you know, I joined all these clubs. I'm on the varsity tennis team. I'm the president of, you know, these four make-work organizations. You know, that takes a lot of hard work, right? That's like many dozens of hours a week. Now, imagine another high school student. He says he started a business. Maybe he's got a four-figure or five-figure contract. He's been even able to hire a few of his friends to help him out.

That seems much more impressive. And it may not even be the case that he worked harder or he's necessarily smarter or something. But there's something more impressive about that. And I was trying to figure out why is that the case? And the hypothesis I came up with is maybe we can model this as an option, right? So I'm sure many of our audience might know about the Black Shoals formula for pricing options. one of the elements, two of the elements in that formula, first is volatility.

Well, first, I guess maybe we should back up and talk about what an option is. It gives you the right to buy an asset at a predetermined price. And one of the things that makes an option valuable is the volatility of the underlying asset. That's because, you know, if you hold an option on something, you're entitled to the full upside, but the downside is limited to what you paid for the option. So you want a highly volatile asset. And, you know, the kid who is starting his own business in high school, he's telling you that he's incredibly volatile in this way, right? So the best case scenario for him is, you know, he becomes the next Patrick Collison or something and found stripe.

And the best case scenario for the kid who joins, you know, four make work clubs is that he works for Patrick Collison. And so, you know, that's one element. The other is one of the other things that's important in measuring options is age to maturity. So how far away are you from the time? that the option can be exercised. Because, again, the further away you are, the more time the option has to, or the underlying asset has to experience large fluctuations in value. And that's why we find young people doing more impressive, right?

You know, why is a high schooler writing about our blog post way more impressive than a grad student writing blog post? Yeah. Well, because you have, the high school has more time in which he can do some really cool stuff. That's awesome. So is there any way that you were? apply this to your own life? Or was this something that maybe you used to somebody else? Like,

what inspired that? I guess you could say I applied it somewhat, although accidentally. After I graduated college, I wasn't really sure what to do. And some incredibly generous people, Anil Asuna Asi, they offered to give me a small grant to get me started on blogging and podcasting full time. And at that point, I guess I decided that the more volatile, the more, the more interesting plan would be to pursue that full time. And, you know, in fact, I was actually, the day I published that blog post, it was, you know, Wednesday afternoon and I had gotten maybe like a dozen likes on that blog post. And I was like, oh, come on. That's a second blog post in a row, no new subscribers. All right. Well, what am I doing with my time? I'm writing essays. I have a

CS degree. Maybe I should be coding. I text a friend of mine who works at a tech company. I'm like, hey, are you guys hiring? And he's like, you know, yeah, constantly. Are you looking? And I'm like, you know, maybe. Maybe I'll let you know in a few days. And then, you know, that stuff happens at night. And so I'm incredibly grateful. Like, now we're all in on this. Yeah. So I've noticed that a lot of people reading your content, even though the content that I like that you're putting out tends to more be on the people that are interviewing are like philosophers, economists. But the people that I've noticed are consuming your content are a lot of other people that I know in the tech space, a lot of young founders. Why is it important for founders, especially young ones?

to consume content revolving about the things that you're putting out. I think it gives them a way to conceptualize what they're up to. It maybe gives them a theory about how it is that they get to a point where they can do something really creative and novel. As for what exactly they are getting out of it, I think you'd have to ask them, but that is my hypothesis of what's going on. Gotcha. If you weren't doing this right now, then, and writing, blog post writing content, interviewing all these really cool people,

do you think you would be working then at a tech startup? Yeah, yeah, or possibly trying my own. Really? Okay, so you said computer science, I know, and that seems to be a big foundation. A lot of your stuff is very data-driven, even though it's about philosophy and things like that, which is really cool. How has that wanting to understand more about the technical side of things

helped you understand philosophy and economics and things that maybe aren't necessarily as, binary as computer science. Yeah. Tyler Cowan has a quote. I think I'm paraphrasing, but it's something like, it's all applied economics.

And you could say the same about philosophy. It's all applied philosophy. I think that the boundaries between domains of knowledge we imagine are much more superficial. At least that's been my experience. So it is actually not that difficult to just, you know, read about one idea in one context. For example, options and think,

oh, how do you apply that to your own life and think about your own prospects and the different plans you can follow. That's so sick. So for this is kind of pulling a 180 year, but you're really, really young to be talking about these types of things. A lot of the people that are like interacting

with your page on Twitter, which like I keep going to is, I just can't believe that we found you on Twitter, to be honest with you, because I think you are really, really smart. I think that I should have found your blog posts an insane, like two years ago, to be honest. Because again, I'm just like scrolling through to her right now

and I'm like, I'm wooed, Oh, I see, you know, Mark and Doreason is interacting with your page. Like I said, for Jeff Bezos, you've had these insane people on. How would you tell people that want to break into the podcasting of media space, how to grow? Yeah. First of all, I'm incredibly flattered by the description. You know, my friend Ben Coon has a very good blog post on this. It's called just sort of something like Ben Coon Power Law.

And one of the points he makes is, so Power Law, by the way, is you might have heard of it, described as the 80-20 rule where, um, right? that most of your results come up from a small, small amount of your investments or your tries. And that's been a strong part of my experience. Like, if you are interested in this kind of thing, it's very hard to tell in advance, like, what will take off, what will not take off. And, you know, your audience will definitely know more about this that I do in startups.

That's the rule, right? You get like a zero dollar exit, zero dollar exit, $1 billion exit, zero dollar exit. So that's very similar to if you want to produce a startup. kind of content, don't get dissuaded if in the beginning you're getting what's analogous is your dollar exits and you're kind of just busting out. Yeah, like the next one could be the one that I guess could give you the few days I've had. I guess I couldn't even say I want to take back. It's not just the growth.

It's first off, the quality of people that are interacting. It's not just like anon accounts on the internet being like, you have a good podcast. But it's people that I'm also impressed that they're not remotely close to like our, you, like, for example, I like to consume content from people who are similar to me. So a lot of things, a lot of the other podcast I listen to are hosted by people around my age, around content that I'm directly interested in right now that pertains to my life, whether that be living in New York or having this as like a first step out of college. But the people that are interacting with your stuff are older, insanely successful.

Like, that's got to mean a lot. So I want to take back that it's not just growth that I think is important. But I think it's really hard as a young person to get anybody outside. side of like your age demographic to see what you're doing. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. And, you know, I'm still incredibly confused about what Mark and Driesan and Jeff Bases and Paul Graham.

Yeah, that they thought I had something worth saying. That means a lot to me. Yeah. So what are your future aspirations for this project now? You said this podcast has been around for two years. Yeah. I'm going to continue it at least for the next few months. And I'm going to, you know, the past few days have given me the opportunity to kind of drastically scale up what I'm working with on a podcast and blog.

As for what happens after that, I'm still trying to figure that out. I've always been very interested in tech and startups. As for how the pivot happens and what that looks like in the meantime, you know, hopefully I'll have a better answer in like a few weeks or months. Well, I'll be looking out for you, that's for sure. And how did you become such a good role? writer. That's a question I asked Rachel Cantor too.

I just had her on. She's an incredible writer. He's to write from the Morning Brew. Great blog post by her as well. So plugging Rachel Cantor again, you write in things that are a little bit different than what she writes about. But I'm so impressed by people

that don't have a writing background or who aren't forced like in college to sit down and have to write every day, maybe like a communications major or somebody studying journalism. You have to sit down and write for class. In computer science, you're not necessarily given those opportunities. And for writing, I was thought of it as something, you know, you get better by practicing it.

How did, were you sitting down in writing during your computer science classes? No, no, not at all. And I really, I guess before, before a few years ago or even before like a few days ago, I've never really been described as, um, it's not something that people have pointed out especially that I'm a good writer or something. So, uh, I guess that wasn't, I didn't know that that, um, that was a thing I could do. Why am I good a writer? You know, I actually think a lot of people in your audience who are programmers might be surprised at how good of writers you are. I think there's something very similar about the art of writing, elegant, and concise programming and being able to express your ideas in prose.

That's so interesting. Jason would absolutely love that. I've noticed that a lot of people that have been on your, like a lot of your guests have also been bloggers in addition to their day jobs, like Brian Kaplan, obviously, a Tyler Cohen. So that's really cool seeing that people that, like, I aspire and look up to, are incredible writers as well. Again, just very, very

blown away by the quality of people that you have on, the kind of questions that you're asking. Do you have any advice for younger people going back to that scouting as a talent, or scouting talent as buying options? Like, relating to that, what advice and what takeaways should

Gen Z, especially recent grads, honestly, because I think that relates a lot to, like, the time of life I'm in now. What advice do you have for people? Yeah, yeah. So you said you just graduated college? I graduated 2020 May, so a little before you. Not that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Advice. Maybe they should be giving me advice because I'm trying to figure out myself what I want to do. These are some obvious things, but even to the extent, I mean, I even didn't emphasize them to the, you know, to nearly the degree I should have.

I think there is hugely diminishing returns to optimizing for the third. things that you're told to optimize for by your parents and your college, like, you know, getting that, putting in that extra 20 hours a week to get all A's versus, you know, taking a few Vs or even Cs. I think that has diminishing returns, especially if you're able to channel that time into doing other kinds of things. One of the things I'm incredibly grateful for is like I never had a strong idea they want to go to grad school or something, because if I did, I would have spent all my time just, you know,

trying to get all A's or something. And instead, when I found myself with some free time, I could just say, like, let's spend up a podcast. So look out for those kinds of opportunities. One of the most valuable things I got out of college, honestly, was just meeting the people I got to meet who ended up being collaborators, encouraged me to do these kinds of things, are doing equally cool things and take advantage of the networking opportunities. Do new shit. I mean, these are kind of obvious things, but it's amazing to the extent to which you need to keep reminding of that, be reminded of that, even me, right? Because you kind of just get trapped in that loop where you're,

You know, you have this idea that, oh, I'm going to graduate. I'm going to get a big tech job. There's other options. So this is a question I didn't have like prepped or anything. But today is Monday, April 18th. And on the live stream, Jason and Molly talked a little bit about how many people are deciding to take Twitter breaks. Chris Saka was the one that we discussed today.

He decided that he's going to pop off for a little bit. Do you think that Twitter is like if you're going to put Twitter in one or two buckets? And I know like this isn't probably something that's binary. but do you think Twitter and your presence on there has been overall good, or do you think it's something that you'll end up leaving behind? Like we're seeing so many people do. I think it really depends on how you engage with it. I think that is definitely a hazard.

Maybe the way I used Twitter like a couple years back. But more recently, if I see somebody tweet anything political and I don't know them or have some strong reason to follow them, I just unfollow them. I'm just not interested. There's a good way to prune. And obviously, you know, don't spend all your time on it. Like, try, you know, but other than, I mean, it's a great way to promote your own stuff mostly.

And that, I mean, without Twitter, like, who would have known about me? Yeah, that's true. Like, I keep saying, but, like, I feel like I should have seen. I am, this is horrible to even say out loud, but, like, I probably read more pod. I mean, read more blog posts and, um, substacks. Like, I'm a newsletter junkie than I am. Like, producer Justin, the one that introduced us, basically, um, is always a what new podcast are you listening to?

And I'm like, oh, I have a new, I have a new newsletter. So you're, um, really, you're going to give me some recommendations. Oh, man, after the, you don't even know. I have like a whole organization system set off. I definitely will. And so on, on Twitter, like, who are your best follows who are people that you're not going to unfollow that are saying super political stuff that, um, could help our audience, especially in like that tech realm, you know, maybe helping them level up.

Uh, let's see. I think Paul Graham has a high, uh, a signal to noise ratio. Tyler Cowan. I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm sure there's other accounts that I follow that are highly worth following. We saw Paul Graham. Paul Graham posted some quotes from your blog, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's really cool. You know, I remember, I remember freshman year. I was in this entrepreneurship class or something, and I met this guy. He later ended up being my roommate and we were talking. And he says, this class is bullshit. If you want to learn about startups, you should read this guy named Paul. Graham. Here's a website. And I spent the next few months just binging that blog, you know, to talking to anybody who was even remotely interested or even overly polite

about about Paul Graham. And so, you know, it was like beyond words when he, when he, I did to think that he read that and, you know, quoted it. That real, I'm super excited to see what you're going to do next. Like you said, things have probably been a little crazy for you the past few days as your content's been actually just like sweeping the web. Thank you again so much for coming on. Where can people find you? you. Dwarkesh Patel.com, but you know that one of the disadvantages of having a name like Thorkech is you can't just say Dwarkeshchelt.com.

So I guess maybe it's in the YouTube description, but I'll just slow down. Dwarkesh Patel. com. And the podcast is called the Lunar Society available on all fine podcasting platforms, including YouTube. Nice. Yeah. And if you Google it, by the way, the Lunar Society does show up as a British dinner club.

Oh, yeah. So, Lunar Society podcasts. like, wait the freak minute, what is this guy doing over here? He's not born in 1765. So thank you again. So much for coming on. Excited to go binge some more of your content. Wow. Well, incredibly flattered to hear you say that, Rachel. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, everyone. Producer Nick here. I want to tell you about the SaaS Syndicate. If you're a founder of a SaaS company with a product and market, our investment team wants to talk to you. Head over to the syndicate.com slash SaaS, S-A-A-A-S, to apply to raise from the Sass Syndicate. And you can join Jason's syndicate of over 9,000 accredited investors at the syndicate.com.

Producer Justin here, know a cool startup? Check out openscouting.com, where anyone can refer a startup to our investment team here at launch. Even if you don't know the founder, if you're the first to flag a company for us and we decide to invest, you'll get 5K in cash or 10% of our carry. Hey everybody, producer Rachel here. Are you an early stage startup that has product and markets, some traction, and are looking to raise at least $500,000? Apply today to Remote Demo Day for your chance to pitch to over 9,000 investors in Jason's syndicate. Submit your application at Remote Demoday.com. Our next event is on April 27th.

And if you want to learn how to invest in startups from the world's greatest angel investor, and no, we're not talking about Chris Saka, then head to Angel. University to apply. The four-hour workshop costs $300 and all proceeds are donated to charity. To date, we've donated over $175,000 to various charities and you can see the full list at angel.university slash charity.